Chris Antlitz

Governance was a recurring theme across content sessions and executive meetings at Mobile World Congress 2026. As telecom operators move from experimentation to operational in AI, creating a corporatewide, centralized framework for data management, model oversight and regulatory compliance is becoming essential. Without clear governance, AI initiatives often remain fragmented across business units, leading to inconsistent outcomes, duplicated efforts and limited enterprise impact.

Mobile World Congress 2026 debrief Al is widely expected to be the overarching topic of discussion at Mobile World Congress 2026 (MWC26). Of most interest to attendees will be evidence that operators are shifting from proofs of concept to scaled commercialization of generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI use cases. Historically, telcos have moved painfully slowly to adopt new technologies, and the move toward AI has been no different.

TBR perspective Though AI was the overarching topic of discussion at Mobile World Congress 2026 (MWC26), sovereignty, resiliency, trust and governance also permeated conversations throughout the event. The rapid acceleration of AI — combined with mounting geopolitical uncertainty — is forcing governments and enterprises to reassess long-standing assumptions about global supply chains, labor markets, education systems and technological dependencies.